A Love Letter to Celery Root

From the outside, working in the restaurant business can look like a pretty sweet deal. You spend a lot of time in the presence of good food, and therefore, it seems, you eat very well. It's not that this isn't true, because it sometimes is, especially in restaurants where the staff sits down to a "family dinner" before service. But it doesn't always wind up that way. When you work in a restaurant, you can find yourself eating some very wonky meals.

My husband, Brandon, and I opened a restaurant called Delancey last August, and believe me, I had grand visions for family dinner. But our daily schedule at Delancey is such that a pre-service sit-down meal isn't possible—or not easy, anyway. Our staff is small, and in the hours before we open our doors, the to-do list is long. I hope it won't always be this way, but for now, we make do—sometimes better, and sometimes worse. Often, during a lull in the evening, someone will make a few plates to share, and we'll meet up in the kitchen—the servers, the host, the dishwasher, Brandon, his sous-chef, and me—and gather around the chest freezer, our makeshift dining table. But other times, I get home at midnight with hunger pangs and realize that over the course of the previous eight hours, I have consumed the weirdest, least satisfying meal known to man: one small spoonful of vinaigrette, to check its flavor; a dozen leaves of lettuce, to check the salads; a slice of coppa that wasn't pretty enough to serve; a gingerale; the few errant bits in an otherwise empty pan of fruit crumble; and one slice from a pizza deemed unfit for paying customers. The problem can often be solved with a late-night bowl of cereal, but when we run low on milk, I've been known to open up a box of Trader Joe's Joe-Joe's cookies (the kind withchocolate filling, ideally) and wash the cookies down with a DVD of Battlestar Galactica. It doesn't make up for the lack of a real dinner, but the music with the opening credits does lull me right to sleep.

Still, I have never wanted so much to sit down in a chair, at a table, at a proper hour for dinner, and eat something sensible. Like vegetables, or vegetable soup, or a salad, something that when you chew it, makes a sound not unlike health! health! health! in your inner ear. I work the cold station at Delancey, which means that I make salads every day, but somehow, I never get to eat much of them. I hand them tothe servers, and then I start over again. I know that salads aren't exactly the kind of thing that most sane people crave in the middle of winter, but maybe, with all the chili and bread pudding and Valentine's candy going around, you'll understand what I mean. I need a good salad.

Of course, that's not so easy. Most lettuces don't thrive in cold weather, and though I love hearty greens like kale and chard, I want them cooked, not raw. Carrots are good in any season, grated and tossed with lemon and olive oil, and the same treatment works well on roasted beets. But without some other flavors in the mix, I tend to get bored with them quickly. No winter could be long enough, however, for me toget tired of celery root.

It's not the popularity queen of the produce section, but I am a great fan of celery root. There were a lot of mean girls in my junior high school, so I can relate to its struggle. Celery root is not pretty. It's pale and round and bumpy, with gnarly hair-like roots around its base. Picture a turnip with untreated skin disease, and you're on the right track. Basically, if you came across a celery root in a dark alley, you would probably turn around and walk quickly in the other direction. But underneath all of that, if you're willing to go there, lies something surprising and beautiful: a smooth, white, crunchy interior and, to complement it, a soft, nutty, celery-like flavor. As far as I know, no one has ever sent a love letter to celery root, but it deserves one, and I'm in the process of writing it right now.

Contrary to what its name implies, celery root is not the root of stalk celery, the one sold in bunchesin the grocery store. It's more like a cousin, a similar vegetable cultivated specifically for its root. Also called celeriac, it has a thick outer skin that must be peeled away before it can be eaten. Its flesh has a bewitching fragrance, very cool and clean, and can be served both raw and cooked. Sometimes I puree it into a soup, sometimes I roast it with olive oil and salt, and sometimes I bake it into a gratin. But as far as I'm concerned, there's really no need to go that far, because it's at its best, flavor- and texture-wise, in salad.

The French have known this for a while. They grate celery root or julienne it, toss it with a mustard-and mayonnaise dressing, and call it céleri rémoulade. It's a common first course in old-school bistros, and grocery stores even sell it ready-made, in single-serving plastic containers. For a long time, I avoided it, thinking it would be too gloppy and gluey, but last winter, I gave in and tried making some. Turns out, it's wonderful, the way the fresh crunch of the root plays against the richness of its sauce. But my favoriteway to make a celery root salad is even fresher-tasting, and isn't that what we're after in salads, anyway?

Like céleri rémoulade, my salad starts with celery root, cut into small batons. (It's not as tedious as it seems: You just peel the root with a vegetable peeler or sharp knife, and you slice it thinly. From there, you stack the slices, a few at a time, and cut them into matchsticks.) Then, for a little sweetness and acidity, I toss in some apple, sliced the same way. Celery root and apples love each other. After that, I add some thinly sliced fennel, for even more brightness and crunch. You could dress that trio with almost any vinaigrette and not go wrong, but I like to use one with hazelnut oil, to help tease out the nutty qualities of the celery root. A good kick of mustard doesn't hurt, either. Nor does some Parmesanshaved over the finished plate, but now I'm just getting pushy.

Of course, since I've gone this far, I should also tell you that it makes an impressive first course for a winter dinner party. It's also fantastic with a pork chop, or with roast chicken. Personally, I like it best around midnight, with a plate of scrambled eggs. It's even better than a box of cookies.